


the summer air was soft and warm.

by LLReid



Category: Bloodbound (Visual Novels)
Genre: Canon LGBTQ Character, Drunken Shenanigans, Drunkenness, Eventual Smut, Exhibitionism, F/F, Families of Choice, Family, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Character of Color, LGBTQ Female Character, LGBTQ Female Character of Color, LGBTQ Themes, Light BDSM, Light Dom/sub, REQUEST!!, Romantic Soulmates, Same-Sex Marriage, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Vacation, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-18 12:26:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28992144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LLReid/pseuds/LLReid
Summary: Each chapter inspired by a different song.~~~~“Your crush on Anastasia is so fucking cute,” teased Lily as she finished off the lightly salted potato chips Adrian had been eating with his toast. “But I hope you know we’re all looking at her titties now.”Anastasia laughed loudly and glanced down at her own chest. “My titties thank you for the attention, ladies.”Kamilah balled up one of the towels and threw it at Lily’s face. “Serafine is the one who has agreed to top you. Look at her— I refuse to say that word— look at her breasts.”“Titties,” Lily smirked. “You gotta call ‘em titties, Kamilah. What kinda gay are you?”“The kind with a brain.”Lily huffed. “You can be extra and say tiddies if the double t isn’t sophisticated enough for you.”Her brow furrowed. “I think that makes it worse— why am I even having this conversation with you?”
Relationships: Kamilah Sayeed/Anastasia Sayeed, Kamilah Sayeed/Main Character (Bloodbound), Serafine Dupont/Lily Spencer
Comments: 32
Kudos: 50





	1. i still don't know what you've done with me.

**Author's Note:**

> PROMPT: Can you write a story where Kami and Annie goes on a vacation? Beach, Island hopping, snorkling, diving, and kamilah complaining how the sun (assuming that they already have the ring that annie invented😅) and salt will ruin her hair. Kami getting annoyed and threatening other tourist because her wife is so HOT and someone tried to hit on her. Annie getting frustrated because they can't order their food because the locals are not that good with english. Annie being sexy on her bikini while Kamilah being the adorably dorky, pervy, and horny that she is. And ending it with them walking at the side of the beach talking about life and reminiscing their first walk at the side of the beach together (Before The Order?). I don't know I got it from watching too much vlogs in YT😂 just do your magic, any story from you is a masterpiece❤❤❤❤

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by; Lay All Your Love On Me by ABBA.

“Not that I am paying attention to this lunatic’s drunken ramblings,” Kamilah whispered to her wife, “but who the hell is Nicolas Cage and why has Lily been yelling about him stealing The Declaration of Independence for the past hour?”

Anastasia snorted into the frozen strawberry daiquiri she was relishing in as Lily launched herself headfirst down the massive inflatable slide that was draped over the side of Adrian’s yacht. The fool had somehow convinced him that his latest super yacht wouldn’t be complete without this ridiculous addition and had been alternating between drinking, sliding, and outlining — what was in her mind — the perfect crime. All whilst Kamilah watched on with pursed lips and a highly unimpressed air about her. 

Family vacations may have been an enjoyable experience for Lily Spencer but for the person who’d singlehandedly kept the imbecile from inadvertently getting herself killed for close to forty years now, they were exhausting. Utterly exhausting.

“She’s talking about that movie...uh... Independence Day— No, wait, that’s the one with the aliens, isn’t it? Its not Independence Day.” Anastasia’s brow furrowed. “Uh... in my defence the lead character in both movies is a cocky straight American guy who is highly unlikeable—“

“I know you did not just mix up the Will Smith renaissance period film Independence Day and the Disney classic National Treasure!,” Lily yelled at the top of her lungs from four decks below them, where she was now laying in the middle of an inflatable donut ring and soaking up as much of the blissful Porquerolles ambiance as she could. “Girl, they’re two entirely different movies!”

“Are they really, though?,” Anastasia yelled over the side of the yacht. “The cocky American guy gets on your nerves the whole time in both and you wind up wanting to punch him in the face so much you can’t focus on the story.”

“National Treasure is a classic and Disney did us dirty by not making a third movie! This is a hill I will die on, goddammit!” Lily sighed loudly. “I wanna know what was in the president’s super secret book! Is that really too much to ask for?!”

“Indeed,” Kamilah deadpanned as she glanced down at her protégé. “And you will eat something other than ice cream when you come back aboard, am I clear?”

“But—“

“Lily Spencer.” She raised an eyebrow. “It will be highly inconvenient if you get yourself drunk enough to drown and I will not be diving into the ocean to save you when you inevitably sink to the bottom.”

“But moooooom—,” Lily started to tease before accidentally toppling sideways out of her float. 

“Did she just die?,” Serafine asked without looking up from the copy of French Vogue she’d been engrossed in for close to an hour. “I did tell her that turning alcohol into popsicles was a terrible idea, but apparently a popsicle is technically food whether it’s alcoholic or not— work that one out for yourselves.”

“Should I rescue her?,” Adrian asked from his lounger. “I never quite know when she’s joking.”

Lily emerged from the water spluttering a few seconds later and grabbed ahold of her float. “Please tell me one of you caught that shit on camera— I’ll forgive you mixing up Independence Day and National Treasure if you caught that on camera.”

“Sorry, Lil,” Anastasia laughed.

“Imma get drunker and then do it again,” Lily replied. “Be ready in like an hour. I’ll do a flip next time.”

Kamilah threw her hands up in exasperation and sank back down on the off-white terry cloth lounger she’d been sharing with Anastasia since they’d boarded the yacht, and Anastasia followed a few seconds later. The Bloodkeeper leaned in and peppered a few kisses along the line of her jaw to placate her.

“You do know she won’t truly be satisfied until you go down that thing, right?,” Anastasia smirked. “You will literally never hear the end of it.”

She feigned a sigh and rolled her eyes despite the fact she knew that she was eventually going to have to suck it up and slide down the damn slide, or Lily would be absolutely insufferable about it for the next thousand years or so. “I am more than two thousand years old. I do not slide— it is highly undignified behaviour.”

“If you’re calling yourself an old lady you haven’t had enough alcohol,” Anastasia concluded with a smile as she put another twirly straw in her frozen drink and pushed the humongous glass between them. “Drink up, grandma.”

Her eyes widened. “What the hell did you just call me?”

“Babushka. Baba. Äje. Kütwşi. Grand-mère. Grandma. Granny. Abuela—,” Anastasia smirked at her. “Would you like me to keep going in the other languages I know, or will you slide down the water slide with a smile on your face to make Lily happy?”

“If you keep going I will literally throw you off the yacht without a second thought,” she snorted, shaking her head all the while. “I mean... the audacity... teasing me whilst I’m trying to enjoy a relaxing vacation. Have you no shame?”

“None,” Anastasia confirmed with a smug smile. When her glacial eyes met her darkened gaze as they were sitting there staring at each other, time seemed to stop. Those eyes were piercing her own, and she swore at this moment — and every moment — Anastasia sensed the real her. The one without the attitude, without the facade... and it was a beautiful thing.

She couldn’t have stopped herself from laughing even if she’d wanted to. Here she was on the top deck of Adrian’s newest super-yacht that was anchored just off the coast of Porquerolles with her scantily-clad wife draped over the sun lounger they were sharing, being teased mercilessly as their family were relaxing all around them... and she was actually loving every moment of it, in spite of the fact Lily would almost certainly wind up getting herself arrested or killed if she were not there to keep her in line.

She’d never been one to understand the joy other people seemed to find in taking vacations until meeting Anastasia, as her sadness and her loneliness had followed her like a shadow wherever she’d gone before then. She’d genuinely believed that she’d seen and done it all until her wife had come along and changed her perspective, and now she felt like she was seeing the world for the first time through her eyes — going places just for the fun of it, rather than because she had business to attend to.

“If I slide down that thing with you one time, will you behave yourself?,” she smirked, pinging the thin white strings of Anastasia’s bikini bottoms that were tied in delicate little bows over her hips. A few passionate bruises and bite marks from their playtime in the hours before were still visible on her body, marking her as hers for all to see.

“Most likely not,” Anastasia beamed as she lightly bopped her on the nose with the tip of her finger. “And my eyes are up here, you perv.”

A soft laugh left her lips as her eyes roamed over her wife’s body. Unlike the other people on board — the mortal staff included — she wasn’t even trying to be discreet about the fact she was checking her out. Whilst everyone else was simply stealing glances around corners and ogling from behind their copies of French Vogue, Kamilah was being so openly salacious and protective that Lily had thrown ice cubes at her before launching herself off the boat to escape her wrath.

A bikini like the one Anastasia was wearing was like a barbed-wire fence. It protected the property without obstructing the view at all... and it was a marvellously powerful thing on the body of a woman as beautiful as she was. Upon seeing her for the first time many people had practically asphyxiated and come close to having some sort of coronary episode... she was really that beautiful— a bikini clad Aphrodite.

She slowly walked her fingers up the valley between her breasts and bit down on her bottom lip as she caressed the soft hemispheres concealed beneath the thin white triangles of waterproof fabric. “You did not wear that bikini to draw my attention to your eyes.”

Anastasia hummed softly and took a deep breath in, and as her chest expanded Kamilah’s hand was filled with the velvety tissue. She teasingly gave a light squeeze and brushed her thumb over the hard peak straining against the inside of white fabric ever so slightly. It wasn’t just her beauty that enraptured Kamilah in moments like this. It was the sheer attitude in her smile, the tilt of her head, and the loving look in her eyes when she caught her sneaking a peek at what was her’s— it was enough to drive a saint to madness.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Anastasia said after a long moment, her voice breathy and her accent just the slightest bit thicker, giving away exactly what she was feeling. “You’re also wearing a white bikini to match me... which is really gay of you, by the way. Like... this is so gay.”

“We’re gay,” she huffed in amusement.

“Matching bikinis? I don’t think I’m this gay.”

She smirked as she straddled her legs and bent down to litter a few sloppy kisses along the line where her skin met her bikini top on either side, brushing her tongue lazily over her warm skin with every kiss she left, lightly scraping her teeth against her every so often. “You woke me up with your head between my thighs this morning and then proceeded to eat me out until I couldn’t feel my legs and was so weak that I could barely lift my head off the pillow,” she mumbled against her left breast, nuzzling her face right above her heart as her hand slipped beneath the bikini and stroked over her right nipple. “You gave me so many orgasms that you had to help me stand up in the shower—“

“Really?,” Adrian chuckled as he pulled the horrifying bucket hat Lily had given him down over his eyes and took a bite of his lunch. “You two are really doing this in front of my avocado toast after I’ve just said grace? I’m trying to eat here!”

“So am I,” Kamilah deadpanned without lifting her head. 

Serafine let out a high pitched laugh and peered at them over the top of her magazine. “Must you make me jealous every time I am in your presence? I have not taken a lover in almost two weeks and the sexual frustration is so unbearable I have resorted to Lily’s favourite websites for relief!”

“How tragic,” Kamilah retorted dryly as she glanced up at Anastasia to see that she was very, very turned on. “Two whole weeks with no sex... what a travesty.”

Without a word, she grabbed one of the huge fluffy towels and pulled it over her chest and crawled beneath it. Serafine let out a cheer and Adrian almost choked on his toast as she did so, and Anastasia’s breath audibly hitched in her throat as she pulled aside the triangle covering her left breast and took her nipple into her mouth. “Jesus— Kami—,” The Bloodkeeper half-moaned, half-laughed.

Kamilah hummed as she happily lapped at her but didn’t lift her head as she kissed her way across her chest and uncovered her right one, keeping her hidden beneath the towel but satisfying the rampant exhibitionist in her. Anastasia’s eyes fluttered closed as she suckled her, staking her claim by leaving a series of little marks that wouldn’t be concealed by the fabric of her top.

She poked her head out of the top of the towel and her dark eyes flickered up to meet hers eventually and she whispered, “Trust me, you’re really that gay. Gayer, even.”

Anastasia giggled and leaned forwards to kiss the top of her head, her fingers tangling up in her damp, salty hair. “Gayer,” she nodded as she leaned back against the off-white terry cloth of the lounger, her eyes never leaving her’s as she continued to worship her with her mouth. “Definitely much, much gayer.”

“Are you planning on inviting me to join or are you purposely trying to make my life miserable?,” Serafine chuckled. “This is cruel.”

“You even think about touching my wife and I’ll stab you,” Kamilah muttered beneath the towel, making everyone laugh.

“You heard my domme,” Anastasia breathed. She didn’t need to see her face to know she was blushing as her hand rose to brush against the simple diamond day collar around her neck. “I’m a kept woman.”

“Goddamn, I go in the water for like five seconds and y’all get free porn?!,” Lily yelled as the loud footsteps echoing across the top deck came to an abrupt halt. “How is this fair?! The fuck...”

“Red,” Anastasia giggled, as she tickled at the roots of her hair. “If you keep going—“

“I’m going to have to fuck you again?,” she smirked as she poked her head out of the top of the towel again, responding immediately to their safeword. “It has been... three hours since your last orgasm? I can’t have you getting too spoiled, now can I?”

In true brat behaviour, Anastasia poked her tongue out at her in response and Kamilah placed a kiss between her eyebrows before tenderly readjusting her bikini top and tossing the towel aside and settling back in beside her with a satisfied sigh. 

“Y’all need Jesus,” Lily snorted. “And I need someone to bend me over the table and fuck me before stealing the goddamn Declaration of Independence with me. Is that really too much to ask for?”

“So you want someone to be gay and do crime with,” Anastasia nodded.

“Girl, exactly! I don’t even care if it’s a dumbass white dude, so long as he’s not so cis and straight he’d be opposed to wearing matching bikinis with me.” She cast a glance at Adrian and he once again choked on his toast. 

“I’ve never once claimed to be straight,” he coughed before guzzling a frozen piña colada to try to soothe his irritated throat. “However, I am not queer enough that wearing matching bikinis will ever be an option— and do not even get me started on everything wrong with stealing The Declaration of Independence! I did not fight in the revolution so that—“

“If you sober yourself up I will top you wherever you desire,” Serafine interjected before Adrian could continue his rant. “I can’t promise to aid you in your quest to imitate Nicolas Cage but we can do matching bikinis. I will never turn down an evening of platonic sex— especially after these two have been all over each other!”

“Yessss!,” Lily groaned as she grabbed Adrian’s toast and shovelled the entire thing in her mouth.

“My toast!” Adrian gaped at her with his mouth hanging open and let out a sigh. “The chef had gotten the bread to just the right ratio of toastiness— I was enjoying that toast!”

“Be a good friend and help me get sober!,” Lily mumbled around her mouthful of food. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve been topped?! I— and I bought you a bucket hat at that gift shop in Cannes. This is you paying it forward.”

Adrian grumbled before staring to laugh as he adjusted the hat he had actually taken a liking to. “Well you two enjoy your evening,” he turned to her and Anastasia and continued, “and you two, do try to keep in mind my cabin is right next door to yours. The things I heard this morning will haunt me for the rest of my days— Lily was right when she said you need Jesus.”

Anastasia started giggling and Kamilah simply smiled wickedly at him as she combed her fingers through the length of her wife’s salty hair. “So you’re requesting that I gag her later tonight?” She stroked her bottom lip with the pad of her thumb and let out a low hum as Anastasia sucked the digit into her mouth. “I’m sure that can be arranged— what do you think, baby?” Anastasia nodded eagerly and Kamilah playfully dragged her finger around inside her mouth as she murmured, “Good girl.”

Adrian squeaked.

Lily and Serafine started cheering.

And the moment the finger had been removed from her mouth, Anastasia just started laughing and pulled the towel up over her face to hide her blush.

“I’m going to get myself more toast and then I am taking a ride on one of the jet skis,” Adrian chuckled, his face continuing to turn a rainbow of vibrant crimson hues. “I would invite you all to join me but it seems you all have plans that I have absolutely no desire to be apart of— and, Kamilah, I’ve stolen your Les Miserables novel as retribution for my wake up call this morning. I’ll be enjoying that with some smooth jazz music until the sun rises.”

All she could do was laugh as Adrian walked away and flipped them all off for good measure. She didn’t even care that her irritating brother had taken it upon himself to go through her things to find decent reading material besides the coffee table books he devoured and claimed to love. She couldn’t really bring herself to care all that much about anything besides the woman in her arms.

“How would you,” she pulled the towel away from Anastasia’s face and kissed the bridge of her nose, “like to swim to shore and take a walk on the beach with me? There will likely be no mortals to bother us at this hour.”

“Like a date?”

“Indeed,” she nodded. “Then I’ll bring you back aboard the boat and ravish you as we begin our journey to Île du Levant.”

“Will you slide down the slide with me?,” Anastasia asked, fluttering her eyelashes in the way that made her weak.

She heaved a sigh and rolled her eyes as she gave her hair a few playful tugs. “As you wish, my love.”

“So when I dare you to ride down the slide you threaten to stab me in the eyes,” Lily laughed, “but when homegirl does it you’re so fucking whipped you go into full on Gay Panic Mode and agree right away?” She glanced at Anastasia and added, “Girl. The power— who knew all you gotta do is suck Sugar Mama Sayeed’s fingers and let her play with your titties to get her in a good mood?”

“I knew that,” Serafine muttered below her breath. “However, my... titties... were evidently not anywhere nearly as potent as Anastasia’s.”

Anastasia laughed and Kamilah glared at her protégé through slitted eyes. “Whipped? Gay Panic Mode? I understand those words singularly but I haven’t the slightest clue about what you’re trying to say— and if you call me Sugar Mama Sayeed one more time I will skip stabbing you and head straight for a good old decapitation.” Then she turned to Serafine and said, “Nobody’s are as potent as Annie’s. They always brighten my mood considerably.”

“Your crush on Anastasia is so fucking cute,” teased Lily as she finished off the lightly salted potato chips Adrian had been eating with his toast. “But I hope you know we’re all looking at her titties now.”

Anastasia laughed loudly and glanced down at her own chest. “My titties thank you for the attention, ladies.”

Kamilah balled up one of the towels and threw it at Lily’s face. “Serafine is the one who has agreed to top you. Look at her— I refuse to say that word— look at her breasts.”

“Titties,” Lily smirked. “You gotta call ‘em titties, Kamilah. What kinda gay are you?”

“The kind with a brain.”

Lily huffed. “You can be extra and say tiddies if the double t isn’t sophisticated enough for you.”

Her brow furrowed. “I think that makes it worse— why am I even having this conversation with you?”

“Because you’re gay as fuck and we’re appreciating your wife’s titties. It makes perfect sense you’d wanna be in this conversation, considering you’ve left hickeys all over them.” Lily shook her head and gave her the biggest shit-eating smile. “I mean, goddamn. You sure as hell marked your territory there.”

She raised an eyebrow and glanced at her wife, who was biting down on her bottom lip to keep from laughing out loud. Anything snarky she could’ve said in response to that died on her lips at the sight of her wife nestled against her side like this. Even after all this time she alone still held the power to drive her to distraction.

So without a word she scooped her up and carried her off towards the monstrosity hanging off the side of the boat. Her head was absolutely spinning after that conversation. Titties. Tiddies. Half of the time she was certain Lily just made up modern words to mess with her.

“You’ve never ridden a waterslide before, have you?,” Anastasia asked rhetorically as she noticed her eyeing the contraption with a pinched brow and her lips slightly twisted to the side. It was a classic sign that she was nervous— a sign so subtle that nobody else but Lysimachus had ever picked up on it.

“Do I look like the sort of person who would find water slides entertaining?,” she snorted. “Are we certain it’s... safe? What I mean is, you’re not going to get injured going down it— perhaps we should take the stairs... not that I think you’re fragile, I know you’re not but I simply do not want you to get hurt and—“

“Here,” Anastasia said as she sat herself down at the top and opened her legs, patting the space between them. “We’ll go together and everything will be fine. I promise.”

Kamilah swallowed thickly and reluctantly crawled over the inflatable black material that was constantly being sprayed with the cool ocean water via a sophisticated pump system. She wasn’t quite sure why she was shaking. She was the world’s most seasoned warrior, after all. But ‘fun’ mortal things like this were still... very new to her. Very, very new.

Anastasia guided her back so she was laying against her and slipped her arms beneath hers and crossed them over her chest to keep her in place. Her lips grazed the shell of her ear and she whispered, “I’ve got you, alright?”

“Don’t let go,” she said quietly.

“Never,” Anastasia replied. “We’ll go on the count of three, alright?”

She inhaled sharply and nodded. “Alright.”

“One... two... three!”

Her heart skipped a few beats as they started plummeting down the side of the four decks and her chest tightened a little as she realised just how steep the incline was. How the hell anyone could find this a pleasurable experience, she just didn’t know. What did this do for anyone’s life? It reminded her all too much of being dragged onto her first and last rollercoaster ride at Six Flags for Lily’s twenty-seventh birthday.

Her stomach plummeted with the drop and she had no real recollection of time because everything, the sounds of Lily and Serafine cheering from the deck and the surrounding muddle of deep azure and amethyst where the ocean met the night sky swept by so quickly. 

The water swallowing them up as they shot off the end of the slide was a welcome relief. Despite the warmth of the mid July night, the water was still pleasantly chilly. It covered them like a blanket, dulled their senses. Crystal blue. Intoxicating. Cold.

So deep beneath its surface that they could look up and see the dark outline of the yacht floating above them, Anastasia finally let go of her and they entwined hands. Time seemed to stand still as their hair floated weightlessly around their heads and schools of kinds of brightly coloured fish flitted around below them.

One of her favourite parts about being a vampire that she’d never confided in anyone besides her wife was the ability to remain beneath the water for longer than she could when she was mortal. A mortal could remain beneath the waves for a minute or two before the irritating need to breathe arose and death began looming over them like a shadow, but even a weak vampire could easily go up to ten minutes without surfacing — and even if they didn’t, the oxygen deprivation and inhalation of water would merely make them pass out, rather than drowning them.

She kept a tight hold of Anastasia’s hand as they began to kick their way towards the distant shore. They stopped occasionally to point out an interesting fish or rock that they spotted on the sea floor, and she marvelled at the waist-length ginger hair fanning out weightlessly around Anastasia’s body. If mermaids were real, this was exactly what they’d look like, she thought.

Her love for swimming hadn’t changed a bit since her mortal life... but it was perhaps more fun now than it ever had been because she got to do it with her wife. Everything was always more fun when they were together— especially swimming. 

Swimming with her reminded her of swimming with Lysimachus, in a strange way she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Perhaps it was because both Anastasia and Lysimachus enjoyed the water a great deal, too. Or perhaps it was because they were, respectively, her favourite people she’d ever known. Or maybe it was because they both understood that it was like the ocean had a voice, one that haunted her with its music every moment she was awake and close to it. Even in her dreams it tugged on her, building the ache inside her bones until she couldn’t ignore the desire to swim.

As a girl her mother had always told her the water was a dangerous thing, that beyond the innocent whitecaps untold horrors were waiting to swallow her up, but she had never heard her over the call of the sea. Even now, at more than two thousand years old, all she felt was peace as she frolicked weightlessly beneath the waves.

Floating in the void free of gravity, she and Anastasia played like children. They pulled each other’s hair into giant spikes and watched their creations immediately fall apart. They communicated solely in hand gestures and overly theatrical facial expressions. They poked at each other’s ribs and every so often clung to each other’s shoulders, hitching a free ride as the other swam. Sound was muffled. It was so dark and they were so weightless that they had to look for their bubbles to be sure which way was up. 

She threaded her fingers through the spaces between Anastasia’s and marvelled as the moonlight shone through the rippling surface of the water and tiny phosphorescents appeared on the delicate string of diamonds around her neck, trailing her every movement like the tails of shooting stars. It was a wondrous thing that a world of such strangeness existed here all the time just under the surface.

Eventually, though, they did reach the deserted beach and walked ashore hand-in-hand. In the distance Adrian’s yacht floated on the calm water gleaming in the moonlight like the ghost of some mythological sea monster, and the only sounds were the comforting thrum of her wife’s heartbeat and the waves hitting the shore, soothing and peaceful.

Her ancient mind never fully rested. Never. Despite her wife’s powers, she was always worried for her safety and surveying their surroundings just to be absolutely certain nothing bad would happen to her. But, here she could ease her thoughts away from any dangerous scenarios she concocted inside her head and her past. Away from regrets.

“The worst part about having long hair that’s this thick,” Anastasia giggled as she tried and failed to push the soaked strands of hair out of her face, only to have it start to coil around her arms, “is that it never does what it’s told when it’s wet.”

“Doesn’t do what it’s told when it’s wet? That sounds awfully familiar.” 

“I was very good this morning after you made me sit on your strap and not move for like an hour—“

“It was five minutes.”

“Same thing!,” Anastasia laughed as her hair somehow began to wrap itself around her neck like a scarf. “Jesus— What the fuck?”

“Stop, stop, stop, before you inadvertently choke yourself to death. Allow me.” She chuckled softly as she went about systematically untangling her from her coppery cage. Anastasia pouted playfully and she leaned in to kiss her brow to placate her as she worked. “There, my beautiful little brat,” she drew it all over her right shoulder triumphantly, “you’re free.”

“My hero,” Anastasia smiled as she pulled her down into a kiss. “And you can call me a brat all you want, we both know you’re just as bratty when you’re on the bottom—“

She nipped at her bottom lip and whispered, “and that is a secret you will carry to the grave.”

The both shared a laugh and Anastasia used her abilities to playfully fire a handful of sand at her before darting out of her grasp. Kamilah spluttered and a toothy smile spread across her face as her eyes tracked her down the beach.

“I am going to get you for that!,” she beamed.

Anastasia shrieked with laughter as she started to chase her, the tide licking at their ankles as they sprinted down the wet sand, leaving a trail of footprints behind them that were swiftly washed away. The Bloodkeeper used her abilities to splash salt water on her as she successfully evaded her grasp.

“You tease!,” she chuckled.

Anastasia twirled with her arms and her hair splaying out around her as she did, her musical laughter floating in the air around them. Once upon a time she would’ve found these sort of games childish. She wouldn’t have understood how freeing it actually was to run across a quiet beach without a care in the world. But if there was one thing she had learned since the first time she and Anastasia had walked along a beach together in Greece all those years ago, it was that nobody was here forever. You had to live for the moment, each and every day... the here, the now... and you had to relish in it.

And relish, she did.

She laughed.

She threw sand.

She splashed water.

Somehow, being with Anastasia like this brought something to her life that had always been missing, something... right. And when she eventually stopped in her tracks and simply allowed her to catch her, Kamilah looped both of her arms around her waist and tackled her to the ground and tiny grains of sand flew up around them as they landed in a tangled heap of limbs. 

Laughing. 

Breathless. 

Happy.

“Oh no.” Anastasia feigned shock as she wrapped her legs around her hips and then said to her in a tone of sweetness that seemed to proceed from another world, “It seems I’m at your mercy.”

Kamilah smiled softly as she picked up a stray strand of damp ginger hair that had somehow managed to stick to her forehead and moved it aside. For a moment she simply stared at her wife’s beautiful face and that beautiful mouth and she wanted nothing more than to taste it— to kiss the one woman who had made her risk eveything for a future worth having in yet another beautiful place that they could say they’d been together. So she closed the distance between their lips without hesitating and whimpered in delight as Anastasia returned every ounce of the affection. Chaste as it may have been, it was the sort of kiss that inspired stars to shine and the moon to rise up into the sky and light up the earth.

“You've turned my world upside down, you know that?,” she breathed, resting her brow against Anastasia’s as they broke apart. She wanted desperately to tell her how much she had become the centre of her being. But she couldn’t. There were no words in any language that she knew that could even begin to do her feelings justice— and Anastasia already knew. She knew everything she was thinking. Everything she was feeling. 

The Bloodkeeper smiled and raised a hand to caress her cheek, her thumb gliding rhythmically across her chiselled cheekbone. She couldn’t help but smile down at her as she swiped a lone tear trailing down her cheek that she hadn’t even realised was falling. With her and her alone, her dark eyes were so expressive they gave a hint to more than what she ever portrayed when anyone else was around. Her dedication to their family, to bettering herself, and her Annie. She touched the younger vampire as if she were made of fragile glass and she kissed her as if she’d savour each one for the rest of her life.

This connection they had wasn’t going to go away, it would only continue getting stronger. Because the more Kamilah spent time with her, the closer she wanted to be— the more she felt like the person she always should have been.

“I love you, Kami,” Anastasia murmured. “You’re where I want to be.”

Kamilah’s eyes fluttered closed for the briefest of seconds and she gave her the only honest and true answer she would ever have. “I love you, too,” she kissed the bridge of her nose, “You own my soul. Always.”


	2. and finally it seems my lonely days are through.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by; I’ve Been Waiting For You by ABBA.

“It has been years since I’ve been in Monaco,” Kamilah murmured as she and Anastasia watched Serafine using her abilities to cheat in a poker game in the Casino de Monte-Carlo. All evening the two psychics in their midst had been cheating the high-stakes card games and slot machines... so much so that between the five of them they’d won more than most people made in a few years of honest work. 

“It’s definitely a change from the little islands we’ve been cruising around for the past six days,” Anastasia smiled. “You were right when you said the French Riviera was beautiful.”

“I’m always right.”

“Mhm.”

“Mhm?,” she echoed indignantly as she wrapped her arms around her waist from behind and pressed a kiss to the exposed skin of her shoulder. 

Anastasia nodded resolutely. “Mhm.”

She huffed and playfully tickled her ribs, making Anastasia squirm in her tight hold. “Well you don’t have to sound so amused by the statement!”

“All I said was ‘mhm’.”

“You said it in a highly amused manner,” she chuckled. “Nobody else would live to tell the tale—“

“Nobody else is brave enough to roll their eyes and point out the fact you’re not right nearly as often as you think you are,” Anastasia giggled as she reached back and affectionately caressed her cheek. Her touch thrilled her, excited her and left her with a yearning to do anything, and everything. “And nobody else knows that the surest way to calm you down when you’re on a rampage is to throw a bag of gummy bears at your face... that’s exactly why so many people wind up getting themselves stabbed.”

A smile twitched at the corners of her lips and she nipped at the shell of her ear. “Is that your scientific opinion? That so many fools wind up impaled on my blades because they’re unaware I have a weakness for the mortal snacks?”

“How many times in the past month have I convinced you not to stab someone who pissed you off by firing a bag of gummy bears at you?”

She pouted. “I don’t know whether I should be amused or highly offended that the love of my life has taken it upon herself to start throwing bags of gummy bears at me when I barge into her office in the middle of the day to rant about the pups and mortals making my life a misery.”

“Hangry Kamilah = Stabby Kamilah... and you don’t even need to be a scientist to figure that one out.” Anastasia turned in her hold and kissed the tip of her nose to placate her. When that did nothing to wipe the playful pout from her face, The Bloodkeeper pulled her closer until her lips breathed her in, until they were sharing one breath. “Gummy bears save lives,” she whispered, nipping at her bottom lip. “To hell with stakes and sunlight. If you want to survive Kamilah Sayeed’s ragers all you need is a jumbo bag of gummy bears and enough courage to fire them at her head before running for your life.”

She laughed, shaking her head all the while. There was nothing she could refute that with. Literally nothing. So she — rather petulantly — muttered, “Your aim is terrible.”

“I’m extremely gay, what do you expect? It’s a scientific fact that gays can’t throw for shit— and you insulting my throwing skills is homophobic, by the way.”

She snorted. “Then you attempting to hit me in the face with gummy bears when I’m complaining about Mathew is also homophobic— but don’t stop,” she sighed and rolled her eyes before begrudgingly continuing, “I... rather appreciate the sentiment behind the gesture.”

Anastasia let out a musical laugh and ran a hand through her hair. Her azure gaze made a leisurely journey up her body that gave her goosebumps. Though Anastasia didn’t say a word, she knew what she was thinking as she drank her in. She surely noticed her lean legs with nicely muscled thighs that led into smooth curves at her hips and a narrow waist beneath the black Haider Ackermann suit she was wearing. Her breath caught as she moved upward to her breasts barely contained in the black silk camisole top that had come with the suit.

“Don’t you worry,” Anastasia murmured eventually, pecking her cheek. “I’ll continue terribly aiming gummy bears at your face and turning you on in public forever— after I go get us more drinks.”

A soft laugh left the back of her throat before she could stop it and she drew her into a kiss. Christ. She certainly had a mouth on her, bold girl that she was. Fire shot from her nipples down to her clit. She was growing slicker by the second, and all her wife had done was say a few bratty things to her and point out that she was a permanently horny mess. 

It was really quite ridiculous.

Her whole body seemed to sink forward into her arms. Anastasia’s lips moved against her own, exploring her mouth so gently. She mimicked her movements — slowly, surely — and she didn't have to think about it at all. It just felt right.

Anastasia let out a soft moan at her reaction and cupped her hands behind her head, threading her fingers through dark hair and pulling her closer until she couldn't tell where her mouth ended and her wife’s began. A liquid sensation swooped throughout her stomach. How was it that she still felt this way after so many years together? It was the most amazing thing she’d ever felt and it somehow kept growing, the vibrating heat ever-expanding outward. It was at times like this she found herself genuinely surprised she was still able to stand at all.

“Surprise me,” she panted, her lips brushing against Anastasia’s as the parted, “you know what alcohol I like better than anybody.”

“Do you guys want anything?,” Anastasia asked Adrian and Lily.

“A nice gin and tonic,” Adrian smiled, “and a dry martini for Serafine. It looks like her game is almost over.”

“Jägerbombs,” Lily grinned as she drummed the table theatrically. “Lots of ‘em.”

Kamilah sighed and turned to her obviously-buzzed protégé. “I am warning you right now, I will not be holding your hair back when you inevitably wind up with your head in a toilet.”

Lily shot her with finger guns — dramatic sound effects and all — and winked. “Noted.”

Anastasia smiled at them before wandering off towards the bar, turning many heads as she went. The backless silver cocktail dress she was wearing barely grazed her upper thighs and left absolutely nothing to the imagination, and she’d been garnering attention all night. The dress was sinful in all the right ways — made to drive everyone who looked at her crazy... to reveal her luscious body without showing off anything too salaciously. 

It was a rather torturous viewing experience.

Her attention was drawn away from Anastasia and her dress as cheers broke out across the room the moment Serafine, once again, beat every mortal in the room at poker. The old fool didn’t even know how to play properly, she was simply relying on her psychic abilities and her natural gift of getting under people’s skin to carry her to victory.

“Uh, Kamilah,” Lily snorted. “I think the wifeys got an admirer.”

At that her attention snapped back to the opposite end of the crowded room towards the bar, where Anastasia was talking with a mortal woman as they each waited on their drinks. Her wife was so friendly she made friends wherever she went, so the fact that she’d been gone all of two minutes and was already laughing with a stranger wasn’t in itself all that unusual.

However, the mortal clearly had more than friendship on her mind... if the fact she was touching her arm and manically batting her eyelids like she was battling some sort of raging pink-eye infection as they laughed was anything to go by. Though, Anastasia didn’t seem to be picking up on the fact the woman was aiming to bed her. 

For someone who could peer into any mind she wished, she really was utterly oblivious to people flirting with her. Utterly and inexplicably oblivious.

“She’s going to notice,” laughed Adrian. “Any minute now she’ll realise the mortal is trying to sleep with her...”

“Before we had sex for the first time, I was naked in bed and basically asked her to strip for me — which she did. Yet somehow she still didn’t realise I actually wanted to fuck her until I’d actually said the words! She’s so sweet and so kind and considerate of other people’s feelings that she simply doesn’t ever assume that anybody has intentions with her that are more than platonic. You have to be be blunt with her for a good long while,” Kamilah said, her eyes narrowing and turning red as she shot daggers across the room at the mortal. “Trust me, she’s not going to figure it out until the mortal asks her back to her hotel room or does something that makes her intentions crystal clear.”

“Yo, for someone so smart she really is dumb,” Lily snorted. “Aaaannd the mortal is doing the head tilt. Any normal person would realise that’s basically an invitation to stick their tongue down her throat— or in her pussy.”

Adrian spluttered and almost choked on the stale pretzels sat in the middle of the table. “Well that escalated quickly.”

“I really do loathe you sometimes,” Kamilah quipped as she monitored the situation. Even from this distance she found herself entranced by the crystal blue of her wife’s eyes. It was a shade that simply shouldn't exist on the human body, a shade one immediately craved after seeing for the first time, a shade that made the heart beat a little bit faster. Her eyes were the most perfect blue she’d ever seen in her life. Even from this distance they were simply remarkable.

She realised the impudent mortal was probably thinking the exact same thing about her eyes, and the thought almost made her throw up in her mouth. There was no way this woman hadn’t noticed her eyes. Besides the striking red hair, those eyes were the first feature anybody noticed when meeting Anastasia for the first time. There was just no way this woman wasn’t currently marvelling at her wife’s eyes.

"There's a fine line between love and loathe, Sugar Mama Sayeed. A fine, fine-ass line."

She glared at her. "Dream on.”

“Reverting back to what you were saying,” Adrian said, “I wasn’t even aware there was a look that invited people to— you know.”

“It’s a girl thing. We have this look we give people when we want them to eat us out,” Lily said matter of factly. “It’s like... more intense than regular bedroom eyes but in a totally non serial killer kinda way, you feel?”

“No,” she and Adrian said simultaneously.

Lily huffed and threw her arms up in exasperation. “How the fuck do you two ever get laid if you don’t know The Look?”

“I know Annie’s Look but why the hell would I know some random mortal’s facial expressions?”

“It’s a universal thing!,” laughed Lily. “Pussies are made to be eaten so it’s like— I don’t know, primal or something! I mean, look at that chick. Sis is just begging our girl to fuck her— that ain’t our girl’s Look, is it?”

“No, it is not! Just because Annie is being polite does not mean she is giving this mewling mortal The Look!,” Kamilah huffed. “You're officially banned from listening to us. Or thinking about this. Or even thinking about thinking about this, understand?”

“Imma be real honest with you,” Lily snorted. “I poured vodka in my Cheerios this morning — hair of the dog — so I’m pretty damn wasted. I don’t understand shit right now.”

“Well at least you’re honest about it,” smirked Adrian.

Kamilah heaved a sigh and started off towards the bar as the mortal inspected the Brand on Anastasia’s arm. 

Her Brand.

Mentally, she forced herself to count backwards from a thousand in an attempt to calm herself down — all of her anger directed at the mortal ignoring the diamonds glistening on Anastasia’s left hand and not at her wife. Anastasia really was the most oblivious person she’d ever met when it came to things like this.

She wasn’t going to massacre this fool in public.

She was NOT going to massacre this fool in public.

“You're a goddess,” the mortal proclaimed cheerfully in a thick Danish accent, raising her wineglass in tribute as soon as the bartender handed it to her. “That dress really is so sexy—“

“My love,” Kamilah beamed as she sidled up to Anastasia’s side and wrapped her in a tight embrace, her eyes flaring the angriest shade of crimson over her shoulder at the mortal. And then she was kissing down the column of her neck, whispering her name like a litany as she lifted her arms over her shoulders and set her lips to the expanse of white skin over her collarbones. Anastasia gasped and started giggling as her strong hands spread wide across her torso, stealing up to cup her breasts in a gesture of complete and utter possession.

“Missed me that much, did you?,” Anastasia smiled as she leaned back just a tad to look her in the face.

She leaned in and pressed a lingering kiss to her brow. “Oh, my darling, you have no idea— who is your friend here?”

“This is Ingrid. She’s from Aalborg, is studying pharmacology, and has three dogs,” Anastasia smiled as she glanced at the green eyed mortal who was suddenly looking woefully disappointed... like she had ever stood a bloody chance with Anastasia. “Ingrid, this is my wife, Kamilah.”

The mortal swallowed thickly and nodded politely. “You’re a lucky woman, Kamilah. Your wife is wonderful.”

“Indeed.” She trailed her fingers up the elegant column of her spine through the open back of her dress, her fiery gazed fixed on the mortal woman. Despite how she’d mellowed out over the years, anyone flirting with her wife was a bit like poking a bear — a rabid, heavily armed, vampiric bear with permanent anger management issues and an overly protective streak that could quite easily send heads rolling the moment it so much as suspected a threat to Anastasia’s wellbeing. 

It was absolutely and unequivocally the surest way to get oneself impaled on the nearest sharp and pointy object.

“Well— uh— It was nice talking to you, Anastasia,” Ingrid said, casting a smile at Anastasia. “I hope you enjoy the rest of your travels.”

“And you,” Anastasia smiled.

Kamilah pressed a kiss to the crown of her head as the mortal walked away, stroking the masses of coppery hair that had been pulled back into a low bun at the top of her neck. “Tell me, how long would it have taken before you realised that mortal was trying to get into your pants... or lack there of?”

Anastasia froze. “What? She wasn’t—“

She snorted. “Think very carefully, Annie. Her body language. The overly dramatic giggling. The lip biting. The way she was blinking like she was trying to stave off a seizure—“

“Oh shit,” Anastasia interjected before starting to laugh. “I’m a dumbass, aren’t I?”

“You are indeed.” She tilted her chin up and took her lips on hers. Each kiss they shared eclipsed all others; real, imagined, dreamed of. It was the beginning of time, it was the end of the darkest age of her long life. “But,” she murmured against her lips, “you’re my dumbass.”

She helped Anastasia back to their table with enough alcohol to kill a mortal outright, and she just knew instinctively that Lily was going to be a handful. Jägerbombs were much too potent for the fool to handle... especially when she’d been having alcohol for breakfast, lunch, and dinner since they’d left New York.

“I feel like trying the slot machines once more. What do you say, Anastasia?,” Serafine smirked before taking a long sip out of her martini.

“I know the mortals technically have no proof of you two cheating but they’re going call the authorities if we win anymore of their money,” Adrian snorted.

“The royal family own this casino,” Anastasia said. “I don’t even feel bad about it because all the money I’ve won is being funnelled into my scientific research and environmental charities.”

“So you’re a modern day Robin Hood?,” Lily laughed. “You do realise your wife is literally an Egyptian princess and you’re distantly related to the old Russian royals... right?”

“Which makes us taking their money all the sweeter,” Kamilah concluded as she clinked her Vieux Carré against Anastasia’s Vesper. “There is something oddly poetic about us rebelling against the outdated system which bore us.”

“Cheers to that,” Anastasia beamed.

“Serafine,” Lily groaned as she threw back her fourth Jägerbomb in under a minute. “Girl, you topping me ain’t enough. They’re making me want a wife now— and you’re gonna have to suck it up and channel your inner Nicolas Cage. Being gay and doing crime is the key to a successful marriage— which is exactly why The Straights get divorced so damn much! I mean, they do more than enough crime but they ain’t gay... which is exactly why they suck at marriage.”

Serafine threw her head back as she laughed. “So we’re getting married and stealing The Declaration of Independence after we finish scamming the esteemed House of Grimaldi?”

“The heist could be our honeymoon,” Lily winked.

“I am not hearing this,” Adrian sighed, shaking his in abject dismay. 

“Plausible deniability, I like your thinking.” Lily shot him with finger guns before downing another jägerbomb. “You’re gonna be the getaway driver anyway. I’ll be the Riley Poole of the group and do all the mad hacking shit. You three,” she pointed at her, Anastasia, and Serafine, “are gonna do all the hard work are you’re gonna do it better than Nicolas Cage ever did — cause you’re all gay as fuck, The Force is with two of y’all, and Sugar Mama Sayeed right here is all stabby and shit.”

“I’m still not watching that movie with you,” Kamilah deadpanned. “And if you two ever do get married, my wife and I will be out of the country because I will not be wearing a Star Wars costume or whatever the hell you’ll try to convince me to do, Lily.”

Everybody started laughing as the pleasant warmth from their drinks began to spread across their bodies and loosen their inhibitions. They drank and they drank and their conversations became more nonsensical with each and every drink they threw back.

They’d all already been halfway on the tipsy train to drunk before Serafine’s last poker game, but now they had clearly all reached the station.

When it came time to leave the casino and head back to the yacht, they all had to cling tightly to one another to keep from collapsing on the pavement. Adrian and Lily shuffled up ahead, laughing loudly and leading the way, whilst she, Anastasia, and Serafine stumbled along behind them. 

Adrian, for some reason unbeknownst to her, had taken it upon himself to start belting out Bryan Adams love songs at the top of his lungs as they walked. It would’ve been fine if he could sing, but despite his many talents he couldn’t sing in the slightest. In fact, he sang like a duck with a cold, even making himself wince when he seemingly forgot and decided to perform his own concert.

She, for the most part, was coherent despite being a little off balance, as was Serafine. Anastasia’s legs, however, were trembling like a newborn foal’s as she leaned against her and loudly proclaimed just how sober she was in every language she knew, her accent thickening with every word that left her lips.

“Annie, put your shoes on,” Kamilah laughed as Anastasia kicked off her expensive Gucci heels and almost tumbled to the ground as she bent down to pick them up.

“My feet hurt,” Anastasia slurred as she pulled her hair out of the bun and then startled when the gentle breeze blew it all in her face, “and— ow! I just stood on a stone.”

“That’s exactly why you should put your shoes back on, baby.”

“Nooo,” pouted Anastasia whilst wrestling with her hair. “Bad shoes.”

“Bad shoes?,” she snorted. “You just bought those shoes.”

Anastasia nodded and tripped into her as hair blew over her eyes once again. “Very bad shoes— and bad hair!”

Without a second thought, she scooped her up and Anastasia wrapped herself around her torso like a koala. She swayed a little on her feet as she placed one hand under her ass and the other protectively on her back, and Serafine had to steady her.

“You really have changed since the last time we were here together— in 1889, was it?”

She chuckled and nodded. “1889. We rang in 1890 on a balcony at that old hotel we used to love, do you remember?”

“I remember getting drunk enough to fall from the balcony and almost taking out five or six mortals as I landed on the street,” she laughed. “The looks on their faces when I simply stood up and walked away— I’ll never forget it.”

She shook her head. “Nor will I. It was really quite amusing from my vantage point on the top floor.”

She knew every single street in Monte Carlo, even now. From the first moment she’d set foot in the city in 1867 she had adored strolling these streets in the night when she needed space to think, and in the early evenings just after dusk, and then in the wee hours of the morning when she was merry and tipsy. 

Once upon a time she and Serafine had loved to have white wine with breakfast along the edge of the marina on Sundays, and she had loved to walk alone amid the well-to-do crowds. She was in love with the chaotic beauty of this city, the fancy yachts, the music, the tales, the underlying sadness in the air, the bright colours, and the dark humour behind it all.

“She has been good for you,” Serafine said softly. “I don’t think I’ve ever told you that when you smile at her, your whole face lights up in a way it never did before. Its like all your other expressions are placeholders. It’s very nice to see.”

Kamilah nodded and affectionately stroked her hand up and down the length of Anastasia’s bare back concealed beneath her hair as she dosed with her head on her shoulder. To merely say that this woman had been ‘good for her’ was to water down her influence on her life considerably. ‘Good for her’ didn’t even begin to unpack all the ways in which Anastasia’s arrival into her life had saved her.

Everything was so much sharper now without her own sadness fogging her — sights, sounds, smells. It was still exhilarating and shocking and somewhat terrifying to realise she’d always been capable of feeling this much, of living life this intensely. Her emotions had grown too strong for her to bear— and it was wonderful.

She wanted colour. She wanted to soar with happiness even if it meant dealing with the weight of fear and guilt, too. She wanted to live. She appreciated each and every moment she was granted.

“She is my saving grace,” she whispered. “I honestly don’t know what I’d do without her.”

The truth was, she had loved her before she had even known the name for it. Everyday she’d sat beside her, inhaling her scent, looking at her beautiful face. Every time she retired to bed, she’d dreamt about her. She eclipsed everything else. It was her. Always her.

Serafine sighed wistfully. “One day I will be so lucky, I hope.”

She raised a brow. “It’s not like you’re lacking in admirers.”

“No, I certainly am not but I still fear commitment the way I always did,” laughed Serafine. “And the alcohol I’ve consumed this evening is only making my self inflicted emotional turmoil worse.”

“The key is to find someone who is your best friend,” she mused, holding Anastasia tighter as the walked down the steep set of stairs onto the dock where the yacht was anchored. “Someone who understands you. Who makes you laugh. Who you can talk about anything to and know everything you say will be held in confidence—“

“And who lets you tie them up on a regular basis?”

She snorted. “Indeed.”

“That seems like a tall order,” laughed Serafine, her eyes drifting towards Adrian and Lily as they staggered dangerously close to the water. “I love them both dearly, you know.”

“I know you do,” she whispered sympathetically. 

“And were I not so frightened of commitment that I already know I’d ruin our friendship— well, I’m not sure which one of them I would choose to be with.” She ran a hand through her curls and swayed in her feet slightly, reaching out to steady herself on her arm. “I almost lost Adrian as a friend when we took a shot at it all those years ago. I could not bear it again... and certainly not with Lily— which is why I intend to keep the sex as casual as possible.”

“You may have everyone else fooled but I have known you for longer than the amount of years they’ve all been alive combined. You do not know the meaning of the word casual.”

She huffed. “I don’t even know if either of them would be open to— not that I’m saying I want— good god, what the hell did I drink tonight? I’m sorry.”

“You always were an emotional drunk.” She sighed. “That is the thing with giving your heart, you know. You never wait for someone to ask or for someone to give you a sign that they want the relationship to evolve. You simply hold it out and hope they want it.”

“That sounds horrifying.”

“It is, but what is the alternative? When I realised how in love with Annie I was, I tried to distance myself from her. I could not be around her for fear she would see what was written across my heart, for the fear that I would somehow lose her or let her down. Because the pain of restraining my love for her was one I could not bear.” She nuzzled her face against Anastasia’s shoulder and cast Serafine a glance. “Do not make the mistakes I did. If you want to be with one of them, or even both of them, just tell them. Some things, the best things, can last forever.”

“I—,” Serafine was cut off as a loud splash followed by a chorus of hysterical laughter echoed from up ahead. Adrian and Lily were both in the water at the side of the yacht, having obviously misjudged the distance between the dock and the deck at the stern.

“I told you that you were fucking drunk as shit, you absolute fucking idiot!,” Lily laughed as she splashed Adrian in the face as he clung to the side of the dock, unable to haul himself out through his laughter.

“That was your fault!,” he retorted, splashing her back.

“Are we going swimming?,” Anastasia mumbled groggily as she glanced over her shoulder at the commotion.

“No, baby,” Kamilah cooed, guiding her face back into the warmth of her neck. “Go back to sleep.”

All she could do was roll her eyes as she watched the pair of them floundering. Drunk friends and taxes were the two great banes of any woman’s life, and she was certainly no exception.

“Wave at your sober selves,” Serafine beamed as she pointed her cellphone camera at them both struggling to get out of the water, standing a safe distance away from the edge. 

“Sober Lily is gonna find this shit hysterical,” Lily sighed happily. The fool seemed to give up on trying to climb out of the water and resorted to floating on her back with all four of her limbs spread-eagled. “This is how you do vacation right; jägerbombs, robbing the royal family in a shady-ass casino, falling head first into the sea— this is living!”

Adrian didn’t seem to share Lily’s enthusiasm for life as he finally rolled onto the dock and lay there like a beached whale. “I may have had more to drink than I originally thought,” he concluded. “I think I might just sleep here... the wood is rather comfortable.”

“Do not be so dramatic,” chuckled Serafine as she effortlessly hauled him to his feet and then cast a glance at Lily. “Get out of the water. There are Cheetos on the yacht—“

“Cheetos?,” Lily interjected, raising her head. “The Flamin’ hot kind or the regular kind?”

“Both.” Serafine rolled her eyes. “Come on. Let’s get you both sobered up—“

“Good luck with that,” Kamilah deadpanned as she gracefully climbed aboard the yacht. “I am taking my wife to bed.”

“Do not be alarmed if you hear anyone falling overboard,” Serafine called as she walked away. “Even my patience has its limits.”

“Better you than me. They’d both be impaled on my daggers by now, were I left to my own devices.”

“That’s mean, Kami,” Anastasia drawled. She likely wasn’t even aware what was going on, which only made her interjection all the more amusing. “Stabbing is— Where are my shoes?”

“You’re holding your shoes, my love,” she snorted. 

“I am? I— oh... I am.”

“You are going to be very hungover in the morning, you realise that?”

Anastasia simply made a noise that was something between a soft mewling sound and a pained whine in response as she opened the door to their spacious cabin and then quickly kicked it shut behind them. Her priority was getting her out of her clothes and into bed where she could sleep off the drink, and thankfully this was one of the rare times that Drunk Anastasia was feeling so cooperative that she even drank some water without having to be practically water boarded.

She, herself, had sobered up somewhat quickly upon realising that Anastasia needed her to watch over her. Were The Bloodkeeper left to her own devices she’d likely have wound up floating in the marina beside Adrian and Lily... and Kamilah simply wouldn’t allow anything like that to happen to her whilst she wasn’t in her right mind.

“Kami?,” Anastasia yawned as Kamilah climbed beneath the covers beside her and drew her into her embrace.

“Mhm?”

“Am I really so drunk I’m imagining the sound of Lily singing Gangnam Style?”

“Unfortunately, no, you’re not,” she sighed, stroking her hair. “Nor are you imagining the sound of Adrian tripping over his own two feet as he tries to learn whatever dance routine goes along with the song.”

Anastasia hummed softly and nodded, nestling closer to her. “Where are we going next? I... I can’t remember.”

“Corsica,” she yawned, resting her chin atop her head. “We’re going off on our own for the last day so I can give you a romantic tour of Calvi and ensure you’re adequately spoiled.”

Anastasia yawned and nodded, half-asleep. “That sounds... good. So.... good.”

She simply smiled and adjusted the blankets as Anastasia’s breaths deepened ever so slightly and her heartbeat settled into the calm rhythm of sleep. She was so trusting and soft when she was asleep… but she knew she’d be pissed as all hell with the inevitable hangover when she woke. The little fire-cracker with a sharp tongue and a sharper temper — where hangovers were concerned, at least — wouldn’t take kindly to her head being a symphony of pain, a sadistic master maestro conducting an opus of excruciating, devastating but self-inflicted agony.

For a moment before closing her eyes, she simply watched her. Watched the undoubtedly fantastical dreams moving behind her fluttering eyelids. Watched the moonlight and the lights from the surrounding yachts come and go as they began sailing out of Monte Carlo, casting their gentle shadows across her face in shades of grey. She’d never seen anyone or anything more beautiful.

She wished she knew what she was dreaming about. Wished that she had her abilities so she could slip inside that head and see the world the way she did. Wished she could see herself through her eyes, even just for a moment... for she’d never felt so much herself as when she was in her arms.

“Sleep well, my angel,” she whispered into the crown of her head, “and know that you are loved.”


	3. touch my soul, you know how.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by; Andante, Andante by ABBA.

“When exactly was the last time you were here, love?,” Anastasia murmured.

A soft hum left Kamilah’s throat as she thought back over the long and muddled years of her life. She’d been to Calvi only once before and it had been many centuries ago. “I don’t recall the exact year but it was definitely before The Siege of Calvi. So I assume it was sometime between 1788 and 1794.”

“Has it changed much?”

She chuckled and pressed a kiss to Anastasia’s temple as they walked, her arm looped protectively around her shoulders, tucking her against her side. The Bay of Calvi twinkled under a cloudless sky mere moments after dusk. It was mid-summer on the Mediterranean island of Corsica, and the weather that evening couldn’t have been more perfect for their date. 

A collection of multi-million dollar pleasure yachts — all polished and smoothed until they gleamed — rested in a spacious marina built into one side of the bay down below them. Adrian’s custom built super-yacht made by a highly secretive company based in Monaco was the crown jewel of them all and from where they stood they could clearly see a multitude of tourists stopping to gawk and take pictures in front of it. The word ‘Raines’ printed along the side left no question as to who it belonged to, and she was sure that was at least half the attraction for the eager mortals craning to get the slightest glimpse of a member of their esteemed family.

The turquoise water had a clarity that seemed to be the trademark for these kind of exotic locations, and that hadn’t changed at all in the centuries since she’d been there last. It lapped gently at the sandy shore and the sides of expensive yachts, adding soft background noise to the gentle conversation passing in many languages that contributed to the serene ambience of the bay.

“The citadel, the bay, and the old town are much the same as they were. However,” she gestured further down the narrow street just off to the side of the scenic path they were standing on and continued, “I recall a brothel once standing where that café is now.”

“Oh, you do, do you?,” Anastasia teased.

She scoffed. “Not because I made a habit of frequenting brothels! Even the classier places were absolutely rancid and rife with sexually transmitted diseases. I wouldn’t have been caught dead crossing the door of one.”

Anastasia wiggled her eyebrows around theatrically. “I know, I know. It’s just fun to tease you.”

“You’re really quite insufferable when you wish to be,” she said in a tone that made the statement sound like a heartfelt compliment with the softest smile on her face. “It is a sure sign you’re in the mood to be restrained and thoroughly punished when we arrive back at the yacht.”

Anastasia’s eyes sparkled with mirth and she feigned as much shock as she could muster. “I assure you, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No?” She hummed softly as she studied their surroundings. Calvi wasn’t exactly an epicentre of civilisation even during the peak of the summer tourist season, so the only other people in their immediate vicinity were an elderly couple walking hand-in-hand up ahead of them and a gaggle of Italian tourists in matching t-shirts walking in the opposite direction. “Take off your panties.”

Anastasia’s jaw dropped and her cheeks immediately flushed pink. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me, darling.” She twirled a long strand of ginger hair seductively around her finger, her smouldering eyes locked on Anastasia’s. “Take. Them. Off.”

“Let me guess, panties are a privilege and not a right?,” Anastasia smirked.

“Something like that.”

The Bloodkeeper giggled softly and caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “This will be good,” she murmured. “That way you can hang them around your neck, then whenever you feel jealous of the other tourists that develop a crush on me or the teenage fangirls who ask for selfies, you can wave them at whoever's pissing you off.”

She snorted and rubbed her hands up and down her sides, then dug her nails into her hips over the top of the short white sundress she was wearing. “The audacity.” She shook her head. “And I’m waiting. Give me your panties, right now.”

“Pervert,” Anastasia smirked, keeping her eyes locked on hers as she boldly lifted the very short hemline of her dress. Without even bothering to look around she hooked her fingers beneath the delicate nude-coloured lace underwear and began slowly sliding them down her legs. “You’d better hope there’s no wind tonight or the whole of this island will get an unobstructed view of my pussy.”

She laughed low in her throat. “I guarantee it’s the most beautiful one anyone will have ever seen.”

Anastasia huffed and playfully threw the balled up underwear at her face, and the two of them started laughing like a pair of naughty children. For some deliciously sick reason, jesting back and forth with this woman always ended with her panties in her pocket.

It was really quite ridiculous.

“These are wet,” she pointed out. “Soaked through, actually.”

Anastasia shrugged. “And that is entirely your fault. Those denim shorts you’re wearing should come with a trigger warning for every gay who sets eyes on you.”

She snorted and pointed at the pockets. “They are a completely impractical piece of clothing. I can’t even fit a small kitchen knife in these things, never mind a set of daggers! I’m walking around with six Swiss army knives—“

“Babe,” Anastasia laughed so hard that she practically doubled over. “When you floated the idea of stashing Swiss army knives in your pockets, I thought you meant like one or two. Do you really think six knives are necessary?”

“They are very small weapons that even I’d struggle to behead a man with,” she retorted. “I tried to bring eight with the idea that I’d fit four in each pocket. However, whichever mortal designed this item of clothing clearly wasn’t thinking rationally. I can only fit three knives in each pocket— and hiding my weapons in a purse is about as impractical as these shorts themselves. Were someone to threaten your safety I would not have the time to dig through a purse—“

“Were someone to threaten my safety — which they’re not going to, by the way — I’d just use my abilities to make them think they were a duck or something and we’d be on our merry way in seconds,” Anastasia assured her with a gentle kiss on the cheek. “I love that you wanna keep me safe... but I think this may just be one of those times you’ve gotten a wee bit carried away with yourself.”

“A wee bit, huh?”

Anastasia nodded. “A wee bit.”

She sighed softly and pressed her brow to hers. “The last time I was here the spirit of war lingered in the air. The island wasn’t as peaceful as it is now. Perhaps that’s why I’m being... overly cautious. Even though I know logically that nothing bad is going to happen, I’d just never forgive myself if something did and I wasn’t prepared for it.”

As the brutally honest words left her mouth, Anastasia’s lips pressed gently to hers, giving her one of the most reassuring and loving kisses she’d ever had. With the velvety softness of her lips and the warmth of her tongue swirling with her own she saw fireworks and felt them through every part of her body.

Most other people might’ve thought her insane for carrying so many weapons, she was sure. Most other people might’ve felt stifled or gotten irritated at her, of that much she was absolutely certain. But as Anastasia kissed her, she tasted her passion and her understanding. She tasted all of her emotions. She tasted a forgiving world she’d never imagined, one she had genuinely believed that she could never enter. It was right there in front of her, in her arms, suddenly open to her. Unexpected. Exciting. Home.

“You don’t think I’m crazy?,” she asked breathily as they started walking once again.

“I don’t think you’re crazy at all and I don’t want you to think that either,” Anastasia assured her. “I can’t say that I understood what was going through your head before you told me, but I can say that I understand now and I’ll be here for you no matter what. If I haven’t made it clear, I love you more than anything.”

She sighed happily and nodded gratefully. “As I love you.”

As they walked, Kamilah pointed out buildings that held some sort of familiarity and told Anastasia stories of the seventy-two hours she’d spent on this island all those years ago. If it hadn’t been for a violent storm blowing across the mediterranean and forcing the ship she and Gaius had been on to port, she never would’ve discovered this place at all.

There was no doubt that the leafy green trees traversing the rugged mountains of Corsica were some of the most beautiful she’d seen in all the world, so she was glad to be sharing it with her wife now. After wandering Calvi and collecting the food she had ordered all packed up in a picnic basket, she led Anastasia high into the mountains, along a trail she had discovered during a late night walk centuries earlier.

The trail led them deep into the sort of terrain usually visited only by mountaineers. The scenery was particularly awe-inspiring, with bare rock and vertical lines in some parts, contrasting with forests, lakes and alpine pastures in other places, all leading to a beautiful cliff side that overlooked the island.

“You know, if anyone else had to lead me on this hike with no explanation I’d probably think I was gonna get chopped up into little pieces,” Anastasia deadpanned, snapping a candid picture of her for their photo album.

“Are you thankful now that I hid all of your high heels?,” she snorted.

The Bloodkeeper sighed and reluctantly nodded her head. “Yeah but I feel ridiculously small. I always wear heels.”

“You’re five foot one and three quarters of an inch tall, which makes you almost five foot two.”

“I’m tiny,” pouted Anastasia.

“You’re the perfect height,” she assured her, stopping to kiss her brow. “You’re perfect.”

“Thank you,” Anastasia breathed.

She took her hand and gave it a tight squeeze as they emerged from the trees to the well-hidden look out. “What do you think?”

Anastasia didn’t answer right away, but Kamilah didn’t miss the way her eyes widened and her jaw dropped as she noticed the sky. It was early enough in the summer evening that the first stars had just come out, the warm glow of sunset still staining the rim of the western sky and reflecting off of the ocean. The crescent moon was also visible, a pale white slice, while the sun tarried. It was a night sprinkled with starlight and trailing comets that were invisible to the naked mortal eye, but crystal clear to them. A night so stunningly still, that it was so utterly incomprehensible and eloquent at the same time.

“This is amazing,” Anastasia breathed.

“Well it’s going to get better in a moment,” she confidently declared as she went about spreading the picnic blanket, lighting candles, and setting up their meal. “Because I’ve got the best vegetarian lasagna made with mushrooms on the island for us to enjoy... since you enjoy it so much at home.”

“You did all of this for me?”

“I did warn you that you were going to be spoiled,” she beamed. “I simply didn’t plan on having your panties in my possession so soon—“

Anastasia stopped her words with her mouth, cupping both hands about her face and stroking her cheekbones with her thumb. Then she pressed one final kiss between her eyebrows and sank back on the blanket. “You really are the best wife in the world.”

She huffed in amusement. “I do try.”

The lasagna that had been made specially for them filled a roasting pan, covered in thick browned cheese that was crispy in the corners. It certainly smelled delicious the moment she’d removed it from the basket.

“Get me a corner piece, and I'll owe you one," she whispered to Anastasia, who sat closer to the pan.

“I'll hold you to that." She scooped the darkest corner onto her plate with a wink that caused her heart to skip. She wished she could come up with a pithy response, but instead she turned her attention to the food, unable to find her words.

The olive bread was a local bakery's signature item. It was slathered in seeds and baked in olive oil so the bottom was crispy yet dripping. It had carved into huge slices, and each coated with garlic butter, then warmed until the butter soaked in. The salad rounded it out, something light to balance all the heavy food so you could keep nibbling on lettuce to stretch the time it took to eat everything.

The food was paired with a red wine made on the island. It was not the most appetizing shade of red, but it was the best match to go with a dinner like this one. It was a nearly still, unfiltered scrumpy style that was layered and complex, but not too sweet and not too dry. It wasn't acidic either, so it didn't compete with the tomato sauce, and the subtle fruity notes didn't confuse the palate with too many conflicting flavours. It was refreshing and smooth, an unusual light red in colour that made it look like a rosé at first sight. 

She poured it into glasses she’d stolen from Adrian’s yacht for them and enjoyed how the evening light got trapped, making the liquid glow when she held it up in the soft amber glow of the candles she’d brought. Adrian would’ve noticed the missing glasses by now and he wouldn’t be pleased, but she knew instinctively their leftovers would placate him.

“Where did you even get all of those Swiss army knives, by the way?,” Anastasia giggled as they ate. “You acquire new weapons all the time so I didn’t think anything was amiss when I woke up this morning and saw you playing with your new toys... but now that I get a closer look at them,” she turned over one of the knives in her hand and smiled at the fact the red handle had a little heart embossed on it, “they don’t seem like the sort of sharp objects a woman who collects ancient daggers and swords would usually go for.”

“I know I said I’d never use your Amazon account when you shared your password with me,” she took a sip of her wine, “but I had trouble sleeping the night before last after our drunken debauchery in Monte Carlo and I somehow wound up internet shopping— did you know that they deliver things the day after you order them? It is a surprisingly clever invention by mortal standards.”

Anastasia smiled softly and shook her head in bemusement. “So what else did you buy on your late night Amazon shopping spree?”

“Who said I bought anything else?,” she smirked. “I’m perfectly capable of self restraint.”

“I know you. Once you realise you like something you dive in head first, you don’t know the meaning of the words: self restraint.”

“Not that I am agreeing with you or anything.” She took a bite of her lasagna, smiling around the fork. “But I may or may not have ordered a 10kg bulk of gummy bears—“

“10kg?,” Anastasia interjected, her eyes widening. “Kami... do you know how much 10kg actually is? It’ll take you a year to eat all of those gummy bears.”

She smiled enthusiastically. “I disagree, I think I could consume them in six months. Though I thought it best to have them shipped to the penthouse, as I’m not sure where I’d store them in the yacht that Lily wouldn’t find them.”

“Where exactly are you planning on keeping them at home?”

“I haven’t figured that much out yet,” she chuckled. “I also ordered sour ones that came up in my suggested items — but I only ordered 1kg of them — and ones that supposedly taste like different sodas—“

“You hate soda so much that you once ranted for an hour in capitalised text messages about how it’s making mortals stupid.” Anastasia raised an eyebrow. “You sent me so many texts about Fanta that you made my phone crash.”

“That’s irrelevant on my quest to try every type of gummy bear in the world.” She waved her hand dismissively and added, “I also bought some of those Laniege lip masks you like, five new pairs of those ridiculous fluffy socks with the pom-poms you’ve converted me to wearing when we’re lounging around, an extra long phone charger, and a top coat that supposedly dries incredibly fast for when we paint our nails.”

Anastasia reached out and gently tucked a long strand of her hair behind her ear. “Sounds like you had fun.”

“It wasn’t... as painful an experience as I thought it would be.”

“You had fun.”

She sighed and playfully rolled her eyes. “If you tell a soul I am now shopping on Amazon when I am supposed to be sleeping, I will be far from amused.”

“Don’t worry, babe, your secret is safe with me.” Anastasia raised her glass in a mock toast and winked at her before continuing, “as my panties are safe with you.”

She wiggled her eyebrows around theatrically. “They’re mine now.”

“You’re such a pervert.”

“I’m not the one wearing no panties, sweetheart,” she smirked wickedly as she toyed with the hem of her little white dress. 

Anastasia rolled her eyes, bemused by her whole predicament. “And I’m not the one carrying around someone else’s wet panties, honey.”

“I’d offer you mine but these damn shorts are so uncomfortable that I dread to think how they’d feel without my underwear acting as a barrier,” she huffed. “How mortals wear these things, I just can’t even begin to fathom— these things riding up their asscrack with every step along with the sodas they consume like they’re their own food group are part of the reason they’re so stupid, mark my words.”

“Well you look good,” laughed Anastasia. “I was serious when I said that your ass should come with a trigger warning.”

She snorted and batted her eyes as innocently as she could manage. “And why’s that?”

Anastasia let out a luxuriant sigh and lay down on the blanket, for a long moment she said nothing as she stretched out like a sleepy cat. There was something so sensual about the graceful movements she made as her back arched and fell again, it was the sort of sensuality that was there to push the intimacy between them to levels she had never reached before with anyone else.

When Anastasia finally spoke, she spoke in a whisper, like she was sharing a deep confidence. “I think you should look and see for yourself.”

She immediately choked on the mouthful of wine she was drinking, her breath arresting so much that she couldn’t comfortably swallow it and had to disregard every table manner she’d ever been taught to spit it out at the side of the blanket. Thank god the need to be on her best behaviour with Anastasia had gone out the window a long time ago, otherwise she would’ve asphyxiated. 

“How bold of you,” she chuckled, biting her lip at her wife’s smug smile. 

“You like bold.”

She didn’t even bother to hide the toothy smile as it began to spread across her face. It was true. There wasn’t much she found sexier than a woman who was bold and unashamed of her own sexuality... and her wife was the boldest and most unashamed woman she’d ever met. 

The things they did in private were secrets only the two of them truly shared, and there wasn’t much more enchanting than knowing Anastasia was just as enthusiastic about them as she was. There was nothing shameful about an act of love. And in the moments she allowed her to worship and devour her body, it stopped being about their physical bodies or their thoughts or their words, it was only the feelings the existed between the two of them alone... and it was a beautiful, beautiful thing.

“I do like bold,” she purred, tracing little circles with the tip of her finger on her inner thigh as her eyes darkened. She let out a soft grunt as she bent Anastasia’s legs at the knees and opened them wide, keeping her eyes locked on hers as she did so. “I like bold very much.”

“Mhm,” Anastasia hummed. “That’s why I’m such a whiny brat.”

She inhaled a shallow breath as she lifted the hemline of her dress, her eyes widening by degrees when she saw just how much her wife wanted her. Perhaps, she thought, she ought to invest in more denim shorts if this was the reaction they elicited. Whatever discomfort she felt was well worth it.

“Annie— god,” she chuckled. “You really weren’t exaggerating.”

“Hearing about your first Amazon shopping spree was the last straw,” giggled Anastasia as she briefly covered her face with her hands before resting them on the blanket beside her head. “You being a complete and utter dork is my kryptonite, because you don’t even realise you’re being adorable or funny and it’s just— it’s a lot to process.”

She bent down and kissed the inside of her left knee before starting an endless trail of worship up and down both of her legs. She wasn’t exactly sure how to verbalise how much it meant to her that Anastasia was quite clearly so excited by her when she was simply being her unfiltered self— everybody else had only ever loved her for being what they wanted her to be, and not for being who she really was... but with her it was different. Anastasia loved her for exactly who and what she was by nature, and not for what she wished that she would be or what other people thought that she was.

To be known and loved so thoroughly was a blessing in her life — and she would never take it for granted.

“Can I?,” she murmured against her lower abdomen, despite the fact she knew exactly what it was she wanted. What she needed.

“Please,” Anastasia whispered.

She breathed out a happy sigh when her tongue finally traced the wetness glistening on her vulva, and slipped right into the depths of her pleasure. Anastasia gasped and gently stroked the dark hair framing her temple, her eyes still caught with hers.

The ancient vampire paused to kiss her thigh and cast her a smile, crooked and besotted, but a smile nonetheless. A smile that was like a promise of a thousand filthy things. But it was a smile that was all for her. Only her.

In her whole life, Kamilah had never looked at anyone else that way. And certainly no man— no other woman— no one— had ever looked back at her the very same way before.

She let her fingertips and her tongue gently tease her until more urgent gasps filled the air. Then she spread her legs further and wider and pulled them over her shoulders as she explored, touched, kissed, and pleasured every part of her womanhood until Anastasia unraveled in her mouth.

She crawled up her body and Anastasia pulled at the spaghetti straps on the black tank top she was wearing lifted her breasts so they spilled from her bra and her top. Her hands rubbed and played with her nipples, quickly followed by her mouth. The Bloodkeeper knew exactly what excited her. 

She continued to pleasure her with her hand whilst Anastasia worshipped her breasts, and she dragged herself along her slender thigh until she was near to bursting. Finally, she pulled her forward and slid two fingers into her whilst Anastasia fumbled with the button and zipper on her shorts, and The Bloodkeeper’s exclamation was louder than either of them expected. She clamped a hand over her mouth, wide-eyed.

“Do I have to gag you with your panties?,” she smirked, leaning over her as Anastasia squeezed her waist with her legs and held her neck in the crook of her elbow so she could keep her face to hers. “Anyone could happen upon us at any moment.”

Anastasia nipped at her bottom lip as she began gently fingering tight circles around her clit, making her eyes roll back almost immediately. “Then I wouldn’t be able to kiss you.”

She gave a teasing squeeze of her neck and bent down to scrape her fangs against the thrumming pulse on the left side before moving to nip at the right. Anastasia quietly whimpered and dug her nails into the back of her shoulders, a sure sign that she appreciated the playful choking and the biting.

“And you wish to kiss me whilst I make love to you?,” she murmured, kissing the half-moon shaped imprints and puncture wounds she’d left on either side of her neck.

“Yes,” whispered Anastasia.

She kissed her way up her neck and all around her jaw. Slow, lazy kisses that matched the pace their fingers were working and were so delightfully self-indulgent it was almost dizzying.

With her free hand, Anastasia caressed her cheek and guided her into an open mouthed kiss. Instead of picking up the pace like she normally would at this moment, she slowed her motions, and once she felt sure not even a mortal could have heard them, she began to rock against her, deeper and harder. 

“Do the thing,” she pleaded, her brow rested against hers as a soft moan left her lips. 

Anastasia nodded and whimpered as her abilities enveloped them both in a warm cocoon of psychic energy, allowing them to feel each other’s pleasure as well as their own. Their chorus of low moans and high-pitched gasps mixed in the air around them, and she simply couldn’t have kept herself silent if she’d wanted to, she was lost in the depths of their shared desire.

Inside her mind, she felt increasingly adrift, as if their lovemaking had reached a realm that transcended the physical body... and she supposed it had. She felt like she was floating above her body, past the treetops, above the whole island, and higher and higher, the entire world pulsating and alive with sensations she’d never imagined possible. 

“Kami,” Anastasia moaned into her mouth.

“Keep— ah— keep doing that,” she managed to force out.

“This?" Anastasia thrust her fingers short and hard into her and curled them in just the right spot that she always took pride in being able to reach, the impact sending jolts of pleasure through her body. 

“Yes, that," she murmured, as Anastasia did it again. And again.

Until the heat between them combusted. Until she felt hot liquid wash over her limbs. 

Until she looked down into her wife’s eyes and saw all the love she had for her reflected there. Anastasia was watching her with passion. With lust. With so, so much love.

She felt tears in her eyes at the sight of her.

She groaned above her, her hips jerking without rhythm, but all the while she watched her with those eyes. When Anastasia reached her climax, her gasps more urgent and sustained, she lost control completely and spilled onto her, her hips bucking a few more times. Her whole body threatening to give way with pleasure and exhaustion.

And when she at last stilled and rested her sweaty forehead against hers, she whispered, "I love you.”

Anastasia took a few deep breaths as she collected herself, the pad of her thumb rested against her lower lip. And she whispered back, “I love you, too, Kami.”

A pleasant languor washed over her limbs as she lay herself down on top of her, her entire body draped protectively around her, a mark of her possessiveness. Anastasia leaned in to kiss her in all the places where she had once ached, her nimble fingers lightly toying with her hair at the roots, lulling her into a sleepy state of complete relaxation.

She blinked her heavy eyelids and looked at her, realising just how entwined they were, both of them tangled up together to the point she wasn’t even sure where she ended and her wife began. She blinked a few times, suddenly delightfully light-headed. Being so close to the smooth pale skin of her face, getting lost in the shifting shades of her blue eyes, it felt like her insides were fluttering and melting.

“I could happily stay in this moment for the rest of my life,” she whispered, stroking a hand gently over her back.

“Me too,” Anastasia replied. “This was the perfect way to end our vacation.”

“Truth be told, I’m not sure I’m ready to go home just yet.”

“Even with your 10kg of gummy bears waiting to greet you?”

She chuckled and nipped at her bottom lip. “Even with 10kg of gummy bears waiting to greet me— what if we travelled on to Italy and spent a week at Lake Como, just the two of us?”

Anastasia’s eyes sparkled and she nodded her head eagerly. “I’d like that.”

“I’ll have to borrow your Amazon account again to ensure there are an adequate number of gummy bears waiting for me at our villa— and that reminds me, I must ask why you thought ‘SexiiAnastasia’ was a good password?”

“I made the account when I was fourteen and the old msn account e-mail I used between the ages of ten and my early teenage years was sexii_ana_sparkles_1997@hotmail.com,” Anastasia giggled. “I thought I was being nostalgic in a grownup way by using my full name after the sexii instead of the nickname, Ana, that people used to call me in school— It made sense at the time.”

“You’re the smartest person I’ve ever met, so please tell me the misspelled sexy was you simply struggling to learn the English spellings of words—“

“No, misspelling words on purpose was a whole thing in the early days of the internet,” Anastasia laughed, her cheeks flushing. “I don’t know why we thought it made us cool but we did— that and typing words with random letters capitalised or using the word Rawr to express our emotions.”

She blinked at her, completely and utterly dumbfounded. “And this was actually considered cool amongst prepubescent mortals?”

“You were a complete loser if you typed things normally.”

“I will never understand mortals,” she sighed. “And though I do admit their Amazon is a rather intelligent invention... I may just be allergic to your password. We have to change it. Putting a double i at the end of sexy gave me hives.”

Anastasia kissed her brow and nodded. “We’ll change it to KaMiLaHsAySrAwR and no hacker will ever best us.”

“I have never in my life said the word rawr—“

“You just did.”

At that she rolled over and pinned her wife below her, laughing all the while. “You are insufferable. Utterly insufferable.”

“You love me, really,” beamed Anastasia.

She sighed happily and kissed her nose. “Indeed,” she murmured. “Indeed, I do.”


	4. and the way you see through me.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by; The Name Of The Game by ABBA.

“I must say,” Kamilah beamed as Anastasia fed her a bite of the panna cotta flavoured gelato they were sharing, “concocting the idea that we extend our vacation might just be the most genius idea I’ve had all week.”

“Humble as ever, I see,” Anastasia teased. 

She opened her mouth again and let her feed her. The Bloodkeeper slipped in her index finger with gelato on the tip and she sucked it clean as she pulled her finger free and away from her mouth. The gelato itself was incredibly decadent, but the woman who fed her was pure intoxication.

“Like you don’t agree with every word I’ve just said,” she retorted, taking the little plastic spoon from her wife’s hand so she could give her a bite of their dessert. “Family vacations are exciting and great bonding experiences, however, one typically requires a vacation to recover from such vacations. Especially after wrangling Drunk Lily for close to two weeks.”

Anastasia giggled around the spoon before drawing back. “She is a handful, isn’t she?”

“That’s putting it mildly.” She rolled her eyes. “The girl is a danger to society.”

They both started laughing and Anastasia rested her head against her shoulder, sighing contentedly. Sat on the shores of Lake Como not too far from their villa, it was hard not to feel perfectly at peace. That night they had watched the sun set over the ruins of Forte di Fuentes as she’d shared tales of the Spanish stronghold that had dominated the region of Northern Italy back in the 17th century. Then they’d enjoyed a meal together at one of their favourite restaurants before deciding to indulge in some gelato. 

She found it funny that despite having visited Italy many times in her life, it had never felt so... homey... until Anastasia was at her side to enjoy it with her. Perhaps it was because she had never owned her own home there outside of the Ahmanet Financial building in Milan until they’d decided to buy and renovate a villa together not long after their wedding. Or perhaps it was because she’d once been a much more jaded and reclusive person than she was at that present moment. Whatever the reason, she thought it was safe to say she had finally found another place — besides New York — that felt right to her. She just couldn’t believe it was somewhere that had been familiar to her for centuries, and that she’d had to come halfway across the world with her wife to truly discover it.

She kissed the top of her wife’s hair, inhaling the scent of her coconut shampoo and conditioner deep into her lungs. This woman really was quite astonishingly beautiful. Possessed of a thick mane of impossibly flame-coloured hair that seemed to sparkle in the moonlight on such a clear night and ocean-coloured eyes of a complete innocent. Even after so many years together that red hair called to her, a siren lure. 

She sighed happily and rested her cheek atop Anastasia’s head and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, her eyes fluttering closed in bliss. “Do you recall the first time we sat like this in Marcel’s garden?”

Anastasia hummed and whispered, “I could never forget that— I fell in love with you that night.”

“Oh?”

“You were still on your guard with me then, majorly,” The Bloodkeeper murmured, “but I think that was the first time you let your walls down, even if it was just a little bit. It was enough for me to see that you are so much more than the ice queen you pretend to be with everyone else, enough to make me fall in love with you.”

“Even then it was easier to talk to you than it ever was with anyone else,” she confessed. “It... frightened me a great deal because during that conversation we had and on the walk that we took I felt more than I’d felt since my mortal life. I actually considered the possibility that you’d employed some sort of witchcraft on me—“

“You thought I was a witch?,” giggled Anastasia, playfully nudging her thighs with her own.

“To make me feel things the way you did— the way you do... is nothing short of magic as far as I’m concerned.” She sighed wistfully. “I think I fell in love with you the night of Lily’s Turning when you had the audacity to be as much of a bitch to me as I was being to you. However, on that night in Marcel’s garden I realised that night that I wanted to keep you— that I needed to keep you.” She closed her eyes and focused in on the gentle beating of Anastasia’s heart. “I don’t think I fully understood what it all meant or what it would lead to. But I finally understood what my mother meant when she used to tell me that everything in life happened for a reason: my whole life, everything that I’d gone through and everything I’d done, all of it had been leading me to you.”

Anastasia reached up and gently turned her face to hers. Then she leaned forward just the slightest bit and pressed her lips to hers, and the whole world seemed to power off, the moon and the rippling lake and the taxi boats and the sky and the streets, and it was just the two of them in the starlight— more alive than they had thought it possible to be before their deaths.

Anastasia drew back and pecked her nose "I..." She kissed her forehead and a soft laugh escaped her lips "love...” Her heart swelled as she pressed her lips to her chin, then she whispered “you.”

“I love you so much,” she whispered back, holding her as close as she could without pulling her onto her lap.

Anastasia nuzzled her face against her neck and she slowly stroked her back, quietly awed by how life had managed to surprise her. This was better and more fantastical than anything she could’ve possibly imagined. The thought was an overwhelming one and invested the everyday world about her, the world of the lake, of trees, of people walking by, with a curious glow, a moonbeam chiaroscuro which made everything precious. It was the feeling, she imagined, that one had when one vouchsafed a vision. Everything was changed, had become more blessed, making the humblest of surroundings a holy place so long as she was in her beloved’s keeping.

“Let’s go home,” Anastasia whispered. “I feel like swimming and I may or may not have left my bikini tops on Adrian’s yacht.”

“How very European of you,” she snorted, biting down on her bottom lip at the thought.

“I’m nothing if not one with the locals when I travel.”

She shook her head in bemusement as she hauled her to her feet and effortlessly threw the empty gelato cup in a trash can a few feet away. “Perhaps you ought to forget your bottoms, too.”

“Are you asking me to go skinny dipping with you or is my domme ordering me?,” Anastasia asked mischievously.

“That depends entirely on your mood— I just want you naked much too ardently to be poetic about it.”

Anastasia gave her ass a playful squeeze and replied, “I’m not in the mood for sex right at the minute but I’m always in the mood for a bit of non-sexual domination.”

“Wore you out that much earlier, did I?,” she teased, already knowing the answer.

“I think the fact that you had to carry me downstairs for breakfast is all the answer you need,” Anastasia fired back. “I mean, fuck the Fifty Shades guy. It was like the Fifty Shades of Sayeed this morning.”

“I aim to please,” she replied with a wink. 

“Excuse me,” a voice called out from behind them in a thick Australian accent, “are you guys really Anastasia and Kamilah Sayeed?”

Every hair on her body stood up on end at the unfamiliar voice calling to them by name. Acting on instinct she whirred around and positioned herself protectively in front of her wife, more than ready to reach for her concealed blades until she realised the potential assailants were two gawky teenagers who couldn’t have been more than nineteen. And one of them, she noticed, was wearing a t-shirt brandishing the title of Lily’s movie series recounting their earliest adventures: Bloodbound.

Brilliant, she thought. Bloody brilliant.

Still, her protective nature ignited all the supernatural powers in her; the ones she had never imagined existed until meeting her wife. A surge of adrenaline, triggered by her fight-or-flight response, gave her physical body all the super-human strength it would need to protect her beloved if these mortals had to try something. Anything. All of that energy coiled below the surface of her skin as she regarded them.

They may have looked harmless... but no one was truly incapable of hurting another person. And mortals— well mortals were the most dangerous creatures in the world, and she wouldn’t trust them as far as she could throw them.

“We are,” Anastasia said as she reassuringly rested a hand in the small of her back, a silent warning that stabbing the mewling mortals for interrupting their night was currently unnecessary.

“We’re really sorry to bother you but could we please get a selfie with you guys?,” the young man with bright blue hair asked. “We’re huge fans— see, we’ve got Clan Sayeed tattoos!”

Her jaw dropped as both young men displayed the tattoos inked on the inside of their wrists in red ink. The circular design was unmistakeable. These fools had really had the audacity to have her Brand inked into their mortal skin— the nerve!

Her fist tightened around the hilt of one of the daggers concealed beneath her blazer to the point that she heard a faint popping sound. 

Mortals. Bloody white mortals appropriating all that was sacred. Had they no shame?

Anastasia, sensing her anger, balled the back of her shirt up in her fist as if that would hold her in place the moment she decided to pounce on these fools. “I’m not sure Kami’s really in the mood for pictures right now,” Anastasia said diplomatically, “but I’d be happy to take a picture with you guys— what did you say your names were?”

“I’m Tom,” the blue haired boy said. “This is my brother Jerry.”

“Tom and Jerry?,” Anastasia snorted.

“Our parents have a sick sense of humour,” Jerry laughed. 

“Annie,” she hissed, quiet enough that the mortals couldn’t overhear her. “These imbeciles have stolen my Brand. They deserve to have their throats slit for this disrespect.”

“Shhh,” Anastasia soothed, kissing her cheek. “I know you don’t like it but we’ve talked about how members of mortal fandoms often get tattoos they think connect them to the things they like and it’s not considered as disrespectful in their society as it is in ours— Its not an excuse for their ignorance but I promise you that this is a case of them misunderstanding the importance of Brands and that they didn’t get these tattoos to intentionally piss you off.”

She grumbled and rolled her eyes. “Just make this as quick as you can, please.”

Anastasia nodded and wandered over to the mortal boys who were waiting with their cellphones to take the pictures. Her crimson eyes tracked each one of their movements, both of her hands now rested securely on her daggers and ready to strike at the slightest hint of a threat to Anastasia’s safety.

Anastasia was her woman.

Her wife.

Hers.

And anyone who dared even think about hurting her would burn in hell for their mistake. For she would do what she had to do. She would do everything in her power to protect the one she loved. 

“I just can’t believe we bumped into you guys here,” Tom said as he snapped a few pictures. 

“Where are you guys from?,” Anastasia asked.

“Brisbane,” said Jerry. “We decided to take a gap year before starting uni and have been backpacking through Europe and Asia— we got these tats at a shop in Taiwan last month.”

“You must’ve really enjoyed Lily’s movies, I take it.”

“We loved them,” Tom beamed. “Uh, this might be a bit forward but what exactly would it take to become a vampire and be accepted into an actual Clan in New York? That’s our life goal.”

Kamilah scoffed but quickly covered up her irritation by acting as if she were merely coughing. The mortals seemed fooled but her wife knew exactly what she was thinking.

“Well you’d have to prove yourselves assets to the community,” Anastasia explained. “Lily’s movies didn’t really explain how our politics have changed since those events transpired. But nowadays no Clan leader is allowed to authorise a Turning without my approval.”

The mortals eyes widened. “And how do you approve new vampires?,” Jerry asked.

“A... psychic evaluation, of sorts,” Anastasia replied without elaborating. “Not only for our safety but for the mortals living in New York, too, you understand. We can’t have anyone Turning people who could pose a danger.”

“Of course, of course,” nodded Tom, casting a glance at her. “So... what’s the application process like for Clan Sayeed?”

She raised an eyebrow. “There is none. I simply decide who I want and that is that.”

“Would we make the cut?,” Jerry asked enthusiastically.

“No.”

Anastasia winced and started laughing whilst glaring at her, and the mortal boys quite clearly had the emotional range of a teaspoon so they didn’t realise she wasn’t joking and started laughing too.

“Behave yourself,” Anastasia mouthed at her. “They’re kids.”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, Annie,” she said, holding her hand out. “Shall we?”

“Of course, love,” Anastasia breathed before turning to the mortals. “It was nice meeting you guys.”

“Wait, uh, is it true that vampires can’t eat garlic? In the movies Adrian said that you couldn’t, right? But Lily Spencer tweets about garlic bread on, like, a daily basis—,” Jerry began, only to start wheezing as his brother elbowed him in the ribs. “It’s a legitimate question—“

“Sorry about him,” Tom laughed. “He’s been obsessed with vampires since we were kids.”

Anastasia laughed awkwardly and replied, “It’s, uh, fine— and we can eat garlic bread. Adrian just doesn’t like it.” She turned and walked to her side. “Enjoy the rest of your travels—“

“So could you read our minds right now? Like for real?,” Jerry prodded.

“If I wanted,” Anastasia shrugged.

The mortals both gasped, their beady eyes widening in awe.

“What about going into a home uninvited?”

“Jerry—“

“It’s science—“

Anastasia sighed and turned around to face the eager young mortals and deadpanned, “You are ducks.”

“We are ducks,” the mortals said in unison, their high-pitched voices suddenly a flat monotone before they let out loud quacking noises and began waddling away from them.

“I’m really sorry,” Anastasia called after them, giggling. “It’ll wear off in a few minutes.”

She spluttered and practically doubled over laughing. So much so that she had to cling to Anastasia to keep from falling over as her laughter shook her body. “What the hell did you just do?”

“I did tell you I could make people believe they were ducks,” Anastasia shrugged. “The next few minutes will be blanks in their minds so they won’t remember it— but I am in no mood to stand here and debunk the whole of The Vampire Diaries again.”

“Annie,” she wheezed as she watched the waddling Brand stealers quacking and flapping their arms wildly around them. “I may need you to sit in on my next board meeting to scare my mortals into compliance— you really are brilliant, you know that?”

Anastasia laughed and flipped the length of her hair dramatically over her shoulder as they began walking home. “I know.”

“Ducks!,” she breathed, shaking her head in amazement. “They believed they were a pair of ducks!”

“Quack quack.” The Bloodkeeper shrugged. “I hate ducks, you know. I don’t know why exactly, I just always have— ducks and swans scare the shit out of me.”

“Serves them right— stealing my Brand! There ought to be laws against such things.”

“Do you want me to go back and tell them to have them removed?,” Anastasia asked, wiggling her fingers delicately next to her temple to symbolise the psychic manipulation that she would need to do.

“No,” she breathed, kissing her temple. “I know you don’t feel comfortable playing with peoples minds any more than you have to and asking that of you wouldn’t be fair— seeing you wet and naked in the pool when we get home will brighten my mood considerably.”

“You get an A+ for your anger management back there,” Anastasia smiled softly. “Nobody wound up impaled.”

“I came close—“

“But you didn’t act on those thoughts the way you would’ve when you were with Gaius,” she interjected. “You did great and I’m proud of you.”

She stopped walking and drew her wife into a kiss. It might’ve been something small, to know that she was proud of her for not acting on her darkest desires. Once upon a time she would’ve beheaded anyone who dared take it upon themselves to ink her Brand upon their bodies without her approval— and she’d have done it the moment she saw the marking without a second thought.

It really was considered the height of rudeness and disrespect in vampire society to steal a Brand... but she did understand that mortals didn’t see it that way now. It’d taken a long time and a lot of difficult conversations with her wife to really make the notion sink in that every mortal with her Brand wasn’t setting out to sour her mood— and there had been a lot of them since Lily’s movie series had come out.

The first time she’d saw her Brand on a mortal body... well many memories had been erased and altered after her rage had consumed her. So she’d come a long way since then.

And it meant a great deal to know that Anastasia noticed that and was proud of her.

“Can you say it again?,” she asked vulnerably.

“I’ll say it as many times as you need to hear it,” Anastasia said gently. “I’m so proud of you. So, so, so proud.”

She sank her teeth into her bottom lip, drawing blood, and gave a soft laugh, and still she kissed her. Not out of desperation or hope or for luck, but simply because she wanted to. God, she needed to. She kissed her until the warm night fell away and her whole body sang with the rising heat between them. She kissed her until the fire burned up the panic and the anger and the weight in her chest, until she could breathe deeply again, and until they were both breathless.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Anastasia pecked at the corner of her lips and caressed her cheek, and she nuzzled into her palm. “You amaze me— now let’s go swim, hmm? I think we could both use a glass of wine... and our ducks will be figuring out they’re human any moment now.”

She snorted and took her hand in hers, giving it a tight squeeze. There was nothing like walking along the lake in the moonlight and going home late with the promise of having a bottle of wine and getting tipsy. The promise of telling each other all the things they had in their heads, millions, myriads, of pointless and frivolous things that somehow would seem so important once they had a drink or two in them.

Butterflies assaulted her stomach and her heart rate quickened in anticipation.

“You’d better never pull that trick on me.”

“Use a damn coaster when you’re drinking in the living room then,” Anastasia quipped.

“Coasters are for mortals.”

“Quack quack, Sayeed.”

“Quack quack, yourself— good god, I just had flashbacks to when you got me to say the word Rawr.” She shook her head in dismay. “I do believe I am, as Lily frequently points out, whipped.”

Anastasia smirked at her and nodded. “You are, babe. You’d better get used to it.”

~ fin.


End file.
